Romney on Abortion: Flip-Flop or Genuine Change of Mind?

RUSH: Let's go to Erie, Pennsylvania. Laura great to have you here. Hello.

CALLER: Oh, happy holidays and mega pro-life dittos to you, Rush.

RUSH: Thank you. Thanks very much.

CALLER: Thanks for entertaining us every day.

RUSH: Ah, I appreciate that.

CALLER: (giggles)

RUSH: I appreciate that.

CALLER: Well, I'm calling because I kind of object to those who call Mr. Romney a flip-flopper on the topic of abortion.

RUSH: Mmm-hmm.

CALLER: There are many people that were pro-choice that just didn't think about it a lot that have joined the crowd, and they've come to a change of heart. They are no pro-life including Norma McCorvey, the original Row of Roe v. Wade and many, many others -- and there are Crisis Pregnancy Centers across this country that are doing just that: Trying to convert the hearts of people to say that these unborn babies deserve life. I don't think it's a flip-flop. I think it's a wonderful conversion in the right direction, in a conservative direction, and I just don't see it like that. I don't know what you think about it.

RUSH: Well, his explanation last night was a little more cogent than it has been on previous occasions because last night he actually made it sound like he changed his mind. He admitted that he changed his mind. Gore, for example, changed his mind the other direction. Gore and Clinton both were pro-life. When they decided they needed national orifice as Democrats, they had to go pro-choice. There are people who don't think you can look at this and isolate it from other Romney flip-flop. I'm just telling you what others who have worries about Romney's solid conservative credentials. They say, "Look, he flip-flops on too many things at too timely a moment here and there. He had to be pro-choice in Massachusetts getting elected. Now seeking the presidency as a Republican, he can't dare be." So they're looking at this in context of other instances which they have been flip-flops and saying, "Ah, we're not sure." You're taking him at his word and others are a little afraid to, and it's strictly a judgment call. Who knows what's in somebody else's heart? You have to trust them when they say it, and you obviously do -- which, for you, works and is fine.

CALLER: Yes. And I just want to thank you always for defending the unborn when you have examples. You're just a great advocate, and those of us in the pro-life community just really applaud you for that.

RUSH: Well, thank you very much. I don't know how one can't. You know, you said something very interesting. You said a lot pro-choice people, it was just the thing to be, and they didn't think about it much. And I happen to think that that is a good point. I think there were a lot of casual pro-choicers who purposely didn't want to think about it. The moment they really started thinking about it or were confronted with it in their lives, they said, "Ah, this is not for me." It is not the easy thing that the radical pro-choice movement people tried to make it out to be. It's certainly nothing as simple and identifying and liberating as the feminazis wanted people to believe.

I really think it's one of these issues where everybody who was a casual participate in politics happened to think that the enlightened, common, smart positions was pro-choice. So they just said that's what they were and then stopped thinking about it and never wanted to discuss it, precisely because that kind of lackadaisical attachment to it would not hold up in a serious discussion about it. I think what happens was the education of what happens in abortion began to happen -- and as the left got even more radical with partial-birth abortion, and then actually coming out supporting infanticide as Obama did as a senator in Illinois -- it made it harder and harder and harder for the casual to stay loyal to that position.

It never was an 80%, 20% in favor of pro-choice opinion in this country. It never was that. Now, the media made it look like it was. The enlightened position was that. All the cool people -- all the hip people, all the actors, all the actresses, all the singers, all the writers, all of the prominent pop culture figures -- they were all pro-choice. So there was a public peer pressure type thing to be that way. And, of course, they gave you an easy way to support it: "A woman's right to choose. My body! I'm doing whatever I want. Hell with you." They gave it that, without considering the moral outcome. The minute the moral outcome was faced and discussed, that's when it all began to crumble for people who had a casual attachment to it. Laura here is exactly right, and now it's nowhere...

It's not even 50-50. The majority position is pro-life -- and if it weren't, I guarantee you that embryonic stem cells would be happening left and right all over the country; and that's still a huge battle that they can't win. It's still controversial. In fact, I gotta tell you, folks: In all candor, there are a lot of things that appear small in big picture. This whole cultural attitude the country has made towards a majority position toward the pro-life side of this is one of the things that constantly gives me faith that the country isn't lost when you get right down to it. I know that there might be other bits of evidence that fly in the face of that simple cultural rot that you see exhibited more and more in television, movies, and so forth.

When you get down to brass tacks, though, it's not reflected in the way that people are living their lives when it comes to the sanctity of life and the unborn. I actually think to add one more thing to this, that one of the real hidden purposes of the Obamacare business is to make killing at both ends of spectrum of life acceptable and common, based on all kinds of immoral choices. In terms of the elderly, "Well, they wouldn't want to live like this! They want to be a burden to people. Just give 'em the pain pill." "They wouldn't want to bring that child into a neighborhood like that! You wouldn't want to bring that child into a world of poverty like that!" You cloak death and killing as compassion, and then you say, "It's liberating! It's woman's right to choose, or it's this freedom or that freedom -- and furthermore, guess what? That rich millionaire guy is gonna pay for it also," and they have to fight for that. They can't do that out in the open. They do it in the open they, lose it. That's one of the things that continues to give me hope and strength that we haven't lost this culture altogether, and that we have not lost the country.